Finally! A Tasty Cheese With 50% Lower Fat Comes To Market

A lot has been said in the press about loosening the noose around full-fat versions of foods we love as new research has trickled out telling us that full-fat foods keeps us satiated for longer, leading to more stable weight management.

This has also come at a time where the 1970s ethic ‘If they want less fat, we’ll carve out all the fatty ingredients and replace them with additive and sugar’ reduced-fat versions have become less and less sought after as a “healthier” alternative to the real deal.

In light of this research, consumers have shifted the way they eat in favour of full-fat versions, something which is particularly prominent in the dairy aisles. Margarine sales have plummeted in favour of “real butter”, whole milk is increasing its market share against semi-skimmed and skimmed varieties and full-fat natural yoghurts have shown their teeth against fruity, low-fat sugar-laden versions.

Until now, there hasn’t really been a low-fat cheese that’s a) worth eating and doesn’t taste like cardboard, b) isn’t packed full of bad stuff to compensate (cheese is after all the fat by-product of milk) or c) has the same creamy consistency of full-fat cheese. Even the category manager at Arla Foods Ingredients (who own Nutrilac) stated: “Taking some of the fat out of the cheese has a major impact on quality, principally because it makes the product matrix too hard. This means the majority of low fat cheeses compare poorly with their full-fat counterparts.”

But Nutrilac SoftCheese, the soft cheese manufacturers under Arla, have revealed a new processing technique which sees fat reduced by 50% in their cheese without losing any of its original creaminess. Nutrilac SoftCheese is a whey protein solution naturally found in cows’ milk and is simply added to the cheese milk prior to the pasteurisation stage. Creamy cheeses with added Nutrilac outperformed regular creamy cheeses in a taste test for taste, texture and appearance.

So you really can finally have your cheese and save on calories finally, without any horrible product replacements. Instead, all you’re doing is lowering your calorie intake with the same good stuff you always loved. A diet rich with these types of cheeses as well as other healthy fat sources such as nuts, seeds and olive oil will see a healthy weight restored and lessening of cravings.

You might even see Nutrilac enriching the supermarket where you shop fairly soon too, as Arla Food Ingredients acknowledged it was possible to include Nutrilac into most cheese recipes without the need for any declaration on the label. So next time you see a “reduced-fat cheese” don’t scoff and think it’s poppycock – it might actually do you some good!